FUSILIER STUART BROWN - 4th June 1920 to 24th March 2001

7th BATTALION ROYAL NORTHUMBERLAND FUSILIERS

Horncliffe boy Stuart Brown (whose parents were the publicans of the Fishers Arms) was 18 years of age when he joined the local detachment of the Territorial Army in Berwick-upon-Tweed. This after Neville Chamberlain’s lamentable announcement of the ‘Munich Agreement’ and ‘Peace in Our Time’ – 30th September 1938. Less than a year later Britain declared war on Hitler’s Nazi Germany and mobilisation of Britain’s Armed Forces began in earnest.

Stuart’s decision to sign-up and depart employment as a junior reporter at the ‘Berwick Advertiser’ proved unusual. The paper had just be printed and distributed when an irate PC Harry Lamb came to complain the reporting of his impending wedding incorporated a date 48 hours in advance of the actual nuptials. Fearing the sack or retribution from PC Lamb - he answered the TA’s call for all territorials to report for duty and left a scribbled note to explain.

The consequences of his actions would prove profound on the direction of his life, of which he could have no inkling. His call-up papers provided six weeks grace - but due to his work travails he reported early the next morning to the TA drill hall in Berwick, and by mid-day on a train to Newcastle-upon-Tyne and billeted at Gosforth race course. Subsequently transferred for three months to the Hampshire town of Alton to be equipped and trained for war.

Little was he to known it would be six long and traumatic years before he would be in a position to return home to Horncliffe. The 7th Battalion of the Royal Northumberland Fusiliers’ was attached to the 51st Highland Division and Stuart was dispatched to France on the 1st April 1940 and travelled onwards to the Saar Front of the Maginot Line with the expectation of being relieved by the French and joining the British Expeditionary Force to the North.

The battalion began to withdraw on the 20th May, with D Company (Stuart’s) kept in position to cover such. By the 23rd they were back with their comrades near Etain and in a dire position due to the collapse of the French Army. The 4th of June was Stuart’s 20th birthday and the division launched an abortive attack on Abbeville. The subsequent days were ones of fighting and retreat. Ending at St Valery and no escape possible – and ordered to ‘Lay down their arms’.

This the 12th of June and the following two weeks involved a forced march of thousands of Allied troops through Belgium with little food, water or shelter. The following aspects of the journey involved open rail cars, subsequently the hold of a barge, and finally a desperate journey via enclosed cattle cars. Lack of sanitation, food and water led to lice, dysentery and worse. Eventually arriving at a prison camp in Germany where facilities and food were scarce.

Stuart and others were moved onto various camps over the following months and eventually he ended up in Poland at Stalag XXB near Marienburg. Although the camp proved an improvement on those prior - Stuart found prison life restricting and jumped at the chance to work and live on a farm at Schonau Village looking out over the river Nogat back towards Stalag XXB. A move which would prove truly transformational to Stuart’s life - in so many ways.

The following years involved gaining skills and experience working the land and animals – the landowner proving an enlightened individual who understood the benefits of treating his POW’s in a reasonably civilised manner. But the real change related to Stuart developing an extremely dangerous and elicit romantic liaison with his daughter (Dora).

This impossible situation came to a head when the Russian’s smashed through the German lines and were advancing through Poland. Stuart could have left with the British POW’s - but agreed to help Dora and her parents negotiate what would prove a truly horrendous journey. Eventually only Stuart and Dora managed to make their way through. But along the way encountered untold horrors of mass rape and abuse – their resilience and fortitude truly amazing.

Stuart’s story of captivity culminates when they made their way through the Russian lines and into the British sector of Berlin. The story does not end there: In that getting authorisation for Dora (a German) to come to Britain proved difficult - finally surmounted when Stuart and Dora made it to Horncliffe and were married. Stuart’s book ‘Forbidden Path’s recounts their story, and his career once more a journalist (News Editor and later Managing Editor of the Scotsman newspaper) demonstrates a remarkable man.